The 100 Day Project 2024
Challenge is my middle name...
Hello stranger, it’s been a beat. I haven’t posted here in a while because I’ve been busy letting perfectionism get in the way. Which, if you didn’t know, working through perfectionism was the whole impetus for launching Pretty Good.
Anywho, it’s February, that time of year when thousands of folks from all over the world participate in #The100DayProject, making a commitment to 100 days of creating. Anyone can participate, and creating can mean whatever it means to you personally.
This isn’t my first rodeo. I like to think “Challenge” is my middle name! In the Spring of 2020 I made 100 repeat patterns in 100 days in order to push myself past the ugly ones in hopes of creating some gems (I did!). That took stamina, and boy did I get familiar with Illustrator shortcuts. Here are a few pretty good ones from June 2020 (I’ve come a long way since then 😅):
Later that year I participated in Inktober, where I worked my way through Missy Dunaway’s Creative Bug class on acrylic ink. Then, in 2022/2023 I embarked on a self-imposed 365-day drawing challenge. That was hard, but then it got pretty easy, and when it was over I kept going for a bit longer. Drawing had become so ingrained in my life, but then as it often happens for me, I started getting confident: “I’ve got this, it’s a habit now, I can stop for a day or two!” And a week would go by, then more time passed, until finally I wasn’t sure I remembered how to hold a pencil and I sure as heck didn't know WHAT to draw.
Over the last year, thanks to some incredible artists on Patreon (Emma Carlisle, Sarah Dyer, Ema Malyauka, and TJ Marston), drawing and painting - specifically with mixed media - has become an important part of my practice, but there are certainly skills I’d like to develop - so why not challenge myself to another round of 100 days but this time, with a community?
I learned about The 100 Day Project exactly 18 hours before it started. Now, I don’t like to overpromise and underdeliver, so I thought hard about whether or not this was something I could realistically incorporate into my day. I decided it’s important enough to make room so I did a bit of brainstorming to figure out what I wanted to achieve by the end of it:
I made a list of things I “Should” do:
Patterns
Motifs
And things I “Want” to do:
Loose!
Figures!
Abstract
Landscapes
Mixed Media
Paint / gouache and acrylic
Collage - abstract and vignettes or scenes or landscapes (no idea what this even means now that I read it back)
And my goals for the 100 days:
Make everyday
Loosen up my style
Go with insticnt
Improve “drawing” (a.k.a. “seeing)
Um… have fun / ditch perfectionism (I forgot I wrote that!)
And lastly, I made a quick list of topics to draw so that I have something to refer to when I don’t “know” what to draw, or nothing sounds interesting:
Forest scenes / greenery
Houses / castles / cottages
Moody (what does that mean?)
Fruit + veg (some of my favorite things to draw)
Flowers (duh)
Figures (soooo scary!)
vignettes (with people, with landscapes)
Animals (bears, foxes, cats, raccoons, birds, tigers, sheep, etc!)
Red Riding Hood (this feels random)
Night scene (moon, owl, stars, tree) (I’m laughing - tree?)
Honestly, the hardest part was thinking through what kind of sketchbook to use…. or should it be loose sheets? Should I make my own sketchbook just for this project? To find out, keep your eyes peeled for the next post where I’ll share the sketchbook decision along with drawings and thoughts from my first week in the challenge.
If you think this is pretty good so far, please share it with your friends! It’s really that simple.